


Sobriety is easier when you're not alone

by mrcheese5728



Series: Klaus and Ben co-parent a Cat [2]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Ben and Klaus are besties, Cats, Ellen is a badass cat, Five loves cats, Five will kill for Ellen later probably, Good Brother Ben Hargreeves, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Past Drug Use, Recovery, Sober Klaus Hargreeves, change my mind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-06-03 19:10:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19470310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrcheese5728/pseuds/mrcheese5728
Summary: “Shit.” Five swears, dusting himself off before glancing at a group of very confused and flabbergasted (and significantly older looking) siblings. He quickly rushes past them, who are all momentarily stunned, and all Klaus can think is ‘whatthefuckwhatthefuckwhatthefUCK-’ before he himself chases after Five into the house. Klaus hears the others moving now too, and when he enters the door he spots Five making a beeline for the cupboards. Ellen, who was grooming herself on the table, hops down when she sees Five and begins to wind around his legs.Five stops his pantry search to look down at the cat, looking almost amused. “Who’s the cat?”





	Sobriety is easier when you're not alone

**Author's Note:**

> Heyyyyyyyyyy  
> So this fic doesn't feature Ellen as much as I like but it is kinda a necessary thing to get the plot goin ya know? The next fic will definitely have more Ben and Ellen, but I needed to give Klaus the credit he deserves. Let me know if you guys have any ideas where I could take the story! (I have some ideas)

Klaus had always been proud of Ellen. She was an absolutely gorgeous cat that tolerated his wide range of bullshit and Ben’s deadness, which was much more than anybody else had even bothered to try to deal with in the first place. She was intelligent and sassy as hell, and Klaus praised her for it among other things  
Ellen had, for a reason unknown to Ben or himself, and uncanny ability to sense when something was wrong. He played it to her natural badassery as a cat, while Ben thought it was because she spent so much time with Klaus that she had to in order to keep her favorite (living) idiot alive. Klaus had dubbed her as having a “Six’s Sense,” as she was somehow worse then Ben with the nagging about dangerous things. With this knowledge, Klaus trusted her instincts when she started growling on the table, staring at the window outside with her hackles raised.  
“Uh, guys? Something’s wrong.” He yelled out, right before objects started flying in, what a surprise, the direction Ellen was growling. He quickly got up and peeked outside through the backyard window, absentmindedly noticing that Diego and Luther-when had Luther gotten so big?-rushed outside, quickly followed by Allison. What seemed to be a very large and very powerful blue portal was hovering outside, a powerful storm whirling around as well.  
Klaus doesn’t necessarily want to go outside and face the Doom Vortex, but he really might as well make an effort to stop it. He grabs the fire extinguisher from the kitchen and rushes out before hauling it straight at the Doom Vortex. He heaves the fire extinguisher and groans when he sees it doesn’t do anything to stop it. But really nobody else had done anything, so he got points for trying.  
Now that he’s closer to Doom Vortex -temporal anomaly, one of his siblings yells- he can see what almost looks like… an old man? He doesn’t get to ponder much more (not that he really wants to anyway) before a small person falls out and onto the ground with a thump before the Doom Vortex disappears. Klaus peaks around his siblings to see who it is, and christ on a cracker is that-  
“Shit.” Five swears, dusting himself off before glancing at a group of very confused and flabbergasted (and significantly older looking) siblings. He quickly rushes past them, who are all momentarily stunned, and all Klaus can think is ‘whatthefuckwhatthefuckwhatthefUCK-’ before he himself chases after Five into the house. Klaus hears the others moving now too, and when he enters the door he spots Five making a beeline for the cupboards. Ellen, who was grooming herself on the table, hops down when she sees Five and begins to wind around his legs.  
Five stops his pantry search to look down at the cat, looking almost amused. “Who’s the cat?”  
“She’s ours!” Klaus chirps, “Her name is Ellen and she’s just the sweetest thing! Benny and I found her a while back.” Five nods, reaching down to quickly pet her before continuing his searching. “Been a while since I’ve seen a cat.”  
“Where have you been?” Luther shouts, startling Klaus and Ellen, respectively.  
“It’s been 17 years Five, what happened? You even look like a kid!” Diego yells. Five sighs in annoyance, and Klaus almost feels bad for him.  
Almost.  
Because he wants answers too.  
“Where were you Five?” It’s Vanya who says this, looking like she’s about to cry and Klaus’s heart breaks a little at it.  
“I’ve been to the future. It’s shit, by the way.”  
“Called it!’ Klaus says, deciding to sit on the kitchen table. Ellen quickly hopped up on his lap, purring all the while. He’s content for the moment and he tunes out his siblings who’ve begun yelling, and he glances up to see a frowning Ben.  
“What?” Klaus asks.  
“It’s odd, isn’t it? Five showing up so conveniently after dad died.” Ben whispers, glancing nervously at Klaus. “You don’t think ...?”  
Klaus scrunches his face. He doesn’t really care about Reginalds death, and it didn’t totally make sense why Five was here. He could see where Ben was coming from. “I don’t think so, but only one way to find out.”  
One thing that Klaus was grateful for, was his ability to keep ghosts at bay. It had been a very slow process, and even harder to maintain. When he had first started out, it had ended in Klaus screaming and crying, trying to understand the swirling energy inside him. He had briefly wondered if the Horror in Ben -named Justin, by Klaus- felt like this, but he quickly dismissed it.  
In an effort to help Klaus control his abilities, Ben had devised a plan to help Klaus get his shit together. His power shit, not his life shit. Ben argued that they weren’t the same, but Klaus firmly belived that both were fucking insane and he hated almost everything about both-therefor, the same shit.  
Nevertheless, the first step of the plan was to familiarize himself with the energy. Klaus felt it run through his veins. not unlike the drugs he had formerly invested himself in. It felt raw and powerful, almost dangerous. Klaus had noticed that it intensified when he was feeling heightened emotions, including but not limited to anger, fear, frustration and hatred. Not that Klaus actually felt these emotions a lot, but it was worth noting. He also took comfort in knowing that if he and Ellen were in some serious trouble, he could probably pull his head out of his ass long enough to get them to safety.  
The second step of the plan included trying to actually do something with the energy. This was, of course, most easily shown in the form of his telekinetic abilities. It was definitely annoying at first, trying to coax a can of coke towards him and failing miserably but effortlessly causing random things to float when he was walking down the street. Klaus had managed to get a firm grip on it eventually (for the most part), and frequently abused this ability when he found that he didn’t have to walk. Ellen also abused the privilege to walk across him wherever she wanted to, knowing that Klaus would be able to catch her.  
The third, and most important, step of the plan involved the ghosties. Ben theorized that he could potentially use the energy to push away the dead, into the ghostly realm or whatever, and Klaus had been immediately on board to get the ghosts out of his fucking face. Learning to extend the energy to banish the dead away from him had been a pain in the ass. His energy was wild, and learning to direct it towards the dead was harder than he thought it would have been. He had managed a method of control, but it depended a lot on him being very focused, and Klaus could focus for as long as Ellen was quiet. That is to say, not very long at all.  
Ben supporting him throughout the entire thing and Ellen being there for comfort was a magical equation for motivation. When Klaus had succeeded in pushing away all the ghosts for the first time, he cried, Ellen gave a bunch of happy chirps, and Ben immediately demanded that they go find a place to celebrate. A place with waffles, of course.  
Klaus did manage to keep it for longer periods of time, and focusing on working on his powers had been a great distraction from cravings. Their trio kept working on it, and the progress resulted that. A strong, steady wave of energy had managed to keep all the nearby ghosties in their ghostie realm, and for that Klaus was ecstatic that they had come this far.  
Now, Klaus was going to have to pull back his safety net. He sighed heavily and closed his eyes, reigning back in the energy and being rewarded by the groans and chatter of the dead. He peaked his eyes open and gawked at the sight. “What the everloving fUCK!?” Klaus jolted back, nearly falling off the table. Ellen jumped out of his arms, hissing at the new additions in the kitchen.  
(Klaus made a tiny note in his head to make sure she got extra treats later for this fright.)  
There were people, dozens of people, all swarming Five. There wasn’t any sort of pattern or similarity to the ghosts- all ages, gender, race, ethnicity and to his confusion, era. Most, Klaus noticed, had bullet holes in them. But some were clearly tortured, raked in burns, slashed with cuts, and discolored with bruises.  
“What the hell’s wrong with you?” Diego’s voice was somewhere in the room, but Klaus didn’t pay much attention to it. He was much more worried on why the everloving fuck so many ghosts were following his little bro, and why they all looked so angry.  
Klaus’s attention turned to Ben, who was looking as shocked as Klaus felt.  
“What has he been doing all these years? You only see ghosts like that if their a major mass murderer or an-”  
“Assasian.” Klaus whispered. Everybody was looking at Klaus now, with varying degrees of confusion and annoyance. Five teleported right in front of him then, eyes narrowing in suspicion. “What did you say?”  
Ignoring the question, Klaus hopped down from the table, quickly scooping Ellen up in his arms. She started purring, rubbing her face against his chin. In return he started scratching her ears, taking a deep breath in an attempt to calm down and push the ghosts back away.  
“I’m gonna go outside for a bit my sibbies, my dearest love and I need some fresh air.” Klaus ignored the protests of his family behind him, absentmindedly opening the door without moving the finger and walking out into the rain.

**Author's Note:**

> Ideas and criticism welcome!


End file.
